To Remember is to Live
by MaceyGoode000
Summary: Cammie visits New York City with the Gallagher Girls and reflects on why she fights and why she is willing to sacrifice her life for others. One-shot.


Hey guys, so it's been awhile, but high school is stressful. Maybe you've read my other stories, Promise Me, I'll Always Want You, or When He Made Me Fall in Love…but if not oh well. Anyway I don't know if this is good, it's not really like my other stories but give it a shot if you have time, and let me know how it is.

All rights to Ally Carter…..

To Remember is to Live

Some people say to forgive and forget, but I say those people don't know what they're talking about. Because if all we ever did was forget, then we would never learn from our mistakes. And if we always forgive, then sometimes, people will never learn from their's. That's the thing about life, many people walk through it without ever growing stronger, or really caring at all about their past. Many times they don't even care who has hurt them, or who they have hurt. But that is one of many things that make me different than most other people, because in a spy's world, if you don't learn from your mistakes, then you might as well walk up to a North Korean firing squad and say shoot.

These thoughts fill my head as I take in the sights of New York City. Beneath her skyscrapers I am a speck of dust sitting on an abandoned shelf, small and seemingly insignificant. Strange as it may seem coming from someone who has seen most of the world, I have never been to this legendary city before. Sure, I visited Moscow with Mom a few years ago, and apparently I have walked through what remains of the Roman Empire. I have been to the depths of the CIA's cold steel walls and walked through the fragrant air of the White House gardens; but New York City had not yet been added to that list until yesterday.

When Mr. Smith walked into C.O.W. and told us to pack, I did without question, and three hours of Bex's rhythmic snoring and the steady hum of a helicopter later I found myself staring at the Statue of Liberty. The funny thing is, a spy of all people would be expected to feel great pride in their country all the time. But never in my life until then had I felt so proud to be an American as I did when looking upon that old copper statue. Lady Liberty has come to stand for everything that I believe in: freedom, knowledge, equality, justice, and hope, and looking on I thought of how many people had seen that same thing, and felt that same pride that I did in that moment. It was like everyone who had ever admired that lovely woman was standing with me in the crisp fall air, when really it was only more girls in Gallagher uniforms.

Anyway, after Mr. Smith's instructions to go enjoy the "American Experience" (something that Bex is struggling to grasp), I wondered off. That is how I have found myself gazing at what is known as Ground Zero. It is not as crowded as I would have thought, but those who are here, like me, stand in silence. There is something about this place that forbids people to speak. It feels like I would be betraying those whose souls rest here to utter a word.

This place is what has brought on these thoughts of forgiveness and forgetting. People who believe in that mindset must never have stood where I do now, because here you are enveloped with an overwhelming sense of the past. It is as if everything else is frozen in time and nothing matters except what is gone. I am trained to save lives, and seeing these pits I can't help but wonder about those that were lost here.

I wonder if there was a wife thinking about what to cook for a dinner that she would never prepare. Or a father thinking about his son's football game that he would never see. I wonder if there was a boyfriend trying to decide between pink or red roses for his one year anniversary, roses that he would never buy. And I wonder if that fireman who ran in to save that screaming woman was thinking about his own newborn baby that he would never see grow up. I wonder if that person who jumped out the window knew that they were so afraid of heights before they began to fall. I wonder if the people on the streets saw their lives flash before their eyes in those awful seconds as the planes crashed into those towers.

It seems to me that all America wants to do is forgive and forget, and if that is the case then these people don't matter. The people who died here aren't a concern anymore because they are dead. That firefighter's newborn baby is growing up without a father, but that doesn't matter, because the past cannot be changed America says. But these people, these parents, children, siblings, and boyfriends matter to me. Their lives may have been snatched cruelly and prematurely, and maybe America doesn't care anymore, but I care. I will not forget, and I will not forgive those who took so many people's futures and stomped and spit on them until they no longer exist.

I was eight years old when those towers fell, but I will fight for the people who will forever belong to those pits for a lifetime if I must. I will save lives, not to replace those lost, but to commemorate and show the world that I learned from that horrific mistake on September 11th, 2001, even if they did not. And so as I walk away from the ghosts of that day I can feel time begin to move once more and looking at the gray street and busy store fronts ahead I know that it is my job to keep these people safe, and to not let them forget.

So, reviews would be great cause I don't know how to get better without feedback…..

MaceyGoode000


End file.
